1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to a method and a device for arranging toothbrush bodies, as well as to a machine equipped with such device.
2. Description of the prior art
It is known that toothbrush bodies are produced by means of injection moulding in a mould. Hereby, the toothbrush bodies are ejected from the mould and collected in a non-oriented manner. In order to provide these toothbrush bodies subsequently with brush hair, they have to be supplied to a brush manufacturing machine one by one, in an ordered and correctly oriented manner.
The devices for arranging, more particularly, orienting, toothbrush bodies which are known up to now make use of the principle whereby the toothbrush bodies are set in motion in such a manner, for example, by means of stepwise arranged trays moving up and down, that a selection is performed due to gravity and the mutual contact between the toothbrush bodies, in such a manner that finally only toothbrush bodies are kept back which are oriented in the right direction. Examples thereof are described in the Belgian patents No. 894.577 and No. 1.003.803.
Although these known devices fulfil their purpose in a large number of applications, they will show problems in a number of other applications. This is the case, amongst others, when a number of oriented toothbrush bodies has to be made available with a high certainty in a short period of time. When applying the aforementioned tray system, it may happen that during a certain period of time, no toothbrush bodies will be presented at the exit. Furthermore, there is an increasing tendency of coating toothbrush bodies with a soft plastic or rubber, as a result of which these toothbrush bodies, due to the friction against the trays, may become jammed and therefore cause disturbances.
It is also known that finished toothbrushes often are collected at the discharge side of the toothbrush manufacturing machine in a non-oriented manner, after which the brushes, before packaging, have to be reoriented again.